Progress in week 9

I'm glad I started doing the 1000 SC, CR and RC. My score is steadily decreasing, as you can see from my earlier posts and this means I will have to put in effort on the verbal as well. Ok, it seems that there is nothing that I'm naturally gifted at and will have to work hard on every area. I knew I sucked at maths, but my performance in SC and CR was news to me. 

Anyways, I'm NOT giving up! I did the 6 chapters in MGMAT guide 3 (Equations, Inequalities and VICs) and I'm doing guide 4 now (Word Translations). I left out the advanced chapters in guide 3 for next week. At the same time, I'm working on MGMAT Sentence Correction (completed 4 chapters so far) and Powerscore Critical Reasoning.

1000 SC, CR, RC - Set 3

SC - Score - 6/15 - Mistakes - 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 45 - 40%
CR - TC - Score 8/15 - Mistakes - 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 15 - Score - 8/15 - 53%
RC - P5 - Score 6/9 - Mistakes - 5, 7, 8
        P6 - Score 7/9 - Mistakes - 3, 8 - Score - 15/18 - 72%

Total Completed: 140 - SC - 45, CR - 45, RC -50
Total Remaining: 2860

1000 SC, CR, RC - Set 2

SC - Score - 11/15 - Mistakes - 16, 21, 25, 30 - 73%  
CR - TA- Score 2/5 - Mistakes - 16, 18
        TB - Score 6/10 - Mistakes 1, 5, 6, 7 - Score 9/15 - 60%  
RC - P3 - Score 7/8 - Mistakes - 3 
        P4 - Score 6/7 - Mistakes - 7 - Score - 13/15 - 86%

Total Completed: 92 - SC - 30, CR - 30, RC - 32
Total Remaining: 2908

Manhattan GMAT - Reading Comprehension

Completed the 7 passages (4 short passages and 3 long ones) given in the Manhattan GMAT RC guide . Each passage has five questions. RC needs improvement. I'm making at least 2 mistakes in each of those passages.

My score - 22/35.  - 62 %

A few must dos during the months of GMAT prep

It is absolutely essential during the months of preparation for GMAT to not let external circumstances disturb your inner state of mind. Stay away from negative people! And DO NOT let anyone make you lose your cool. For God's sake do not get into arguments with others. Save it for another day (next day after GMAT). Cultivate a harmonious environment and avoid noise altogether. I know this can be difficult, but you need to find a quiet place for your study. If you have noisy room-mates or family members stay out of their way (at least till the GMAT is over). Talk little, eat well, exercise and sleep well (apart from the usual grind of studying). Focus on the GMAT. And people, do not think that you can do studying with the TV on. Trust me, I've tried. I couldn't do even the easiest of SC or RC with the TV on, without making a bunch of careless mistakes.

1000 SC, CR, RC - Set 1 score

SC: Score 10/15 - Mistakes: 2, 8, 10, 12 and 13 - 66%
CR: TA - Score 10/15 - Mistakes:  7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 - 66%
RC: P1 - Score 6/8 - Mistakes: 6, 8
       P2 - Score 3/9. Mistakes: 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 - Score - 9/17 - 52%

Total Completed: 47 - SC - 15, CR - 15, RC - 17
Total Remaining: 2953

Thousand SC, CR and RC

Divided thousand SC, CR and RC into 45 sets comprising 15 questions each from SC, CR and RC. Will be doing one set every day from today.

Started with Powerscore Critical Reasoning Bible

A few months back, I had started with Powerscore CR Bible and didn’t make any progress with it after doing the first two chapters. Today, after reading Adekku’s post, I’m determined to complete it. Thanks Adekku!

Progress in week 10

I worked on the Manhattan GMAT reading comprehension and completed the first 6 chapters. Also did the first four chapters in Manhattan GMAT guide 3 (Equations, Inequalities and VICs). Manhattan RC seems to have some strategies to improve RC. However, I can vouch for it only after I see a significant improvement in my RC score. Chapter 7 in the RC guide has 7 passages. I will complete them by tomorrow. Also, I have to complete Manhattan GMAT guide 3 by this week end. Next week is allotted for Manhattan GMAT guide 4 (word translations) and guide 5 (Geometry). Though I haven't completed the SC and CR guides, I'm quite confident in those areas.

Starting with Manhattan GMAT guide 3 - Equations, Inequalities and VICs

I reviewed the mistakes that I got wrong from OG and OG Quant Review and I'm moving on to guide 3 (Equations, Inequalities and VICs). I was feeling rather sick (seeing my DS score), but life has to move on, right? I will start with some sentence correction to cheer me up :-)

Manhattan GMAT - Fractions, Decimals, Percentages - Score

Score of the OG-12 and OG - Quant Review problems in the Manhattan GMAT guide 2 - Fractions, Decimals and Percentages

Problem Solving - 83/113 - 30 wrong - 73%
Data Sufficiency - 15/44 - 29 wrong - 34%
Total - 98/157 - 59 wrong - 62%

With this hopeless score in data sufficiency, I'm truly at a loss. Any ideas to improve data sufficiency? Please suggest.

Progress in week 11

Stress is the difference between where you are and where you want to be. Right now, stress is what I'm feeling. I was to complete all the problems listed in guide 2 (Source: Official Guide – 12 and Official Guide Quant Review) by today and start with guide 3, but I still haven't completed the data sufficiency section in OG-12. Also, my score in data sufficiency from the Official Guide Review was devastating. Nevertheless, I'll post the scores tomorrow after completing the data sufficiency section from OG-12 today. 

Last week, I completed guide 2 and my weekend was spent solving questions from the OG-12 and OG-review. Have only 70 days left and I need to speed up. I haven't been doing any verbal. Quant is taking up all my time. I will start with guide 3 (Equations, Inequalities and VICs) tomorrow.

Manhattan GMAT - Fractions, Decimals and Percentages

I worked on the first three chapters of the Manhattan GMAT guide 2 (Fractions, decimals and percentages). My only advice to people reading this (from experience) is: Take notes as you go along!

I'm going to work on RC now, for a pleasant change from quant.

Learning from mistakes - MGMAT Number Properties

I'm learning from my mistakes, by keeping track of the problems I got wrong and doing them as many times as possible. As you've seen from my previous post, I attempted around 120 problems on Number Properties getting around 34 wrong. Now, I suffer from memory loss and I'm pretty sure that if I were to do the same 120 problems a week later, my mistakes would be from the same 34 problems (even though I've gone through the solutions). To get around this, I've circled those questions (not on the OG), but on the Manhattan GMAT Number Properties book, so that I can quickly revise them just before the practice test.

Manhattan GMAT Number Properties - Score

Score of the OG-12 and OG - Quant Review problems in the Manhattan Number Properties Guide.

Problem Solving - 50/67 - 17 wrong - 74%
Data Sufficiency - 37/54 - 17 wrong - 68%
Total - 87/121 - 34 wrong - 71%

Progress in week 12

I had a few hospital visits to make over the weekend for my family and was only able to complete the OG problems related to Number Properties listed in the Manhattan GMAT Number Properties guide. I'm happy to say that I'm done with Manhattan Number Properties (the whole of it, not one single problem left out)! I postponed the practice test yet again. Will take it end of June, when I'm done with the revision of the Manhattan GMAT guides. I'm working with Fractions, Decimals and Percentages (Book 2) of the Manhattan guides.

Kaplan Premier Program - RC

I got the worst score in RC today. 32/50. 64%??!!!  Well, what can I say? Serves me right for not paying enough attention to RC.

MGMAT - Number Properties

I worked on all the chapters in Manhattan GMAT Number Properties except for the chapters that reference to Official Guide questions. I'm going to start with that now. I came across something I didn't know. If you do all the Manhattan Guide questions that reference to OG, Manhattan GMAT says that you will end up doing all the questions in the OG. That would be one way of identifying the areas that need work.

I have a very short attention span, and I find that too much of anything makes me yawn. I've decided to make a small change in my plans and work on quant in the morning (when I'm alert and wide awake) and verbal in the evenings (when I'm tired and half asleep). Also, I mustn't do reading comprehension just before bed. It would be a good idea to start with Reading Comprehension in the evenings, I find it so hard to concentrate on the long and dull passages. CR and SC are better, because they are short passages/lines and make for easy reading. So my suggestion, from my experience, is start with RC, continue with CR and end with SC.

Kaplan Premier Program - CR and SC done

I'm through with SC and CR on Kaplan Premier Program. I scored 42/50 in SC, the same as I had on CR. I went through the answer choices (ALL the answer choices and why each choice other than the correct one was wrong). Honestly, I didn't like this at all. I mean, if I got it right, what's the point? Anyways, I trusted the better judgement of Kaplan, which insisted that all the choices should be evaluated (who knows if you got it right by fluke?) and went on with it. I figure that it might not have been such a boring task if I had reviewed the answers in batches of 10. I'll do it this way for RC.

Started with Kaplan Premier Program

As I mentioned earlier, Manhattan GMAT books are compact. Not that the material is trivial, but I find them quite handy to carry around unlike the OG-12 or the Kaplan Premier Program book. My plan is to work on the Manhattan GMAT books in the mornings and work on the Kaplan followed by the OG books in the evenings. I started with Kaplan and went all the way upto critical reasoning. Now, I'm working on the sentence correction section. I did the 50 problems in the CR section, scoring 42/50. 8 wrong. Then I gave those 8 another shot. I went wrong in 4 of the 8, which means these were not careless mistakes, but concept errors. Need to review the errors and move on to another 50 in SC and the RC passages.

I know I've been putting off taking the practice tests and the waiting could last forever, if I wanted to prepare myself fully before I take the test, but I've decided that I would be taking it on 11th June, 2010 (coming Friday), and face the music.

The weekend is almost over and the climate is awesome in Chennai(a rarity), but I'm stuck with reviewing the errors in CR and going through all the CR questions and the answers again. Can anyone think of a worse way to spend the weekend? I'm waiting to get the GMAT over with so that I can get on with life and go for swimming, learn Spanish and Italian, work on my French, do yoga without cribbing about how much time it takes, sign up for treks, take up volunteering, cook better food instead of watching the clock and travel lots!

Progress in week 13

Working on Manhattan GMAT Number Properties. Done with the first 5 chapters  in this book. Also, I got two notebooks, to take down important notes from the Manhattan GMAT books. People, it's not interesting to take down notes after you are done with all the chapters. I should have taken down notes as and when I completed the chapters, instead of waiting all the way till the end. My goal for the weekend is to complete the Number Properties book. I've already gone through all the Manhattan GMAT books till the advanced sections. So this should not be too difficult.

Progress in week 14

I managed to go through the inequalities chapter in Manhattan GMAT as Anagha suggested and completed it. It always bothers me when I leave stuff unfinished. There's a nagging feeling in my mind. I'm revising the Manhattan GMAT guides now. The thing I liked about these guides is that, it is easy to go through one chapter at a time in small time slices, say half an hour. So I find it worth doing just before I start for work or during lunch or when I'm really tired, but want to study something that's not too loaded with information. My strategy is to do the revision of the MGMAT guides in the mornings and work on OG in the evenings. When I read the experiences of so many others who have given the GMAT, the two takeaways were

1. Study the MGMAT guides thoroughly (at least thrice).
   
2. Start with the OG after this and do the problems in the OG (at least thrice)
   

There are people who have done the revision of the Manhattan GMAT guides and OG for 7 or 8 times. With only 90 days to go, I don't have that kind of time and I believe that the above strategy is good enough.